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Wednesday, 22 April 2015

So the trilogue is agreed: the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market, otherwise known as OHIM or, to the in-crowd, OAMI, is to be re-branded (on which, see last night's Katpost here). The chosen replacement for this sesquipedalian monstrosity (47 characters, inclusive of spaces) is to be the nearly-as-sesquipedalian European Union Intellectual Property Office (43 characters, inclusive of spaces). For those who love brevity, IP Australia takes some beating, but IP EU was never likely to be.

The search for the Lost City of Alicante ...

It's probably too late to persuade Europe's finest to change their minds, but this Kat is convinced that his talented readers, many of whom are deeply involved in branding and marketing issues, could have come up with something less boringly descriptive and certainly less long-winded than "European Union Intellectual Property Office". He therefore invites them to submit their improvements. This Kat also thinks that it would be fun to design a new logo to represent the deeper meaning of the European Union Intellectual Property Office, this being an IP office which (i) is by the seaside, (ii) just can't stop making money, (iii) operates in five official languages and (iv) unlike most other IP offices, has nothing to do with the oldest and most expensive IP right, the patent.

Do please send your suggested logos for the rebranded office to the IPKat at theipkat@gmail.com, ideally as .jpg or .png documents so that he can edit them if need be, or at least in a format that doesn't send his computer into spasms or stun it into total inertia. The best entries will be posted on this weblog (so can we have an irrevocable non-exclusive licence for that purpose, please?) and a small, as yet unspecified prize will be offered for the best entry. Closing date for entries is close of play, Sunday 3 May. It might be a pint of Badger at The Old Nick or, if it turns out to be cheaper, a flight to Alicante with Ryanair ...

Old Campinos had some cashE-U-I-P-Oand with that cash he changed the siteE-U-I-P-OWith a site crash hereand a site crash therePlease try ChromeFirefoxbut abandon MicrosoftOld Campinos burnt some cashE-U-I-P-O

Old Campinos had some cashE-U-I-P-Oand with that cash he changed the nameE-U-I-P-OWith a blue flag hereand a lightbulb thereYellow starsIt's not farfrom the current logoOld Campinos burnt some cashE-U-I-P-O

Old Campinos had some cashE-U-I-P-Oand with that cash he bought some 'botsE-U-I-P-OWith some Google hereneologisms thereTake the wordsGoogle themthen object on shaky groundsLet's find meanings where there's noneE-U-I-P-O

A. Campinos had some cashE-U-I-P-OQualitative was ignored E-U-I-P-OWith a target hereand a target thereSend it outGet it outIt complies with GuidelinesThere's no reasonsThere's just rulesE-U...I-P....Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo

On the "s" or "z" question, the original Regulation 40/94 used "Harmonization" for the name of the office, hence OHIM used that spelling. Subsequent regulations played fast and loose with the spelling until the codified version 207/2009, to which you link, changed this to "Harmonisation."

This explains the anomaly, but not why a "z" was used in the first place. The answer to that is beyond me! The European Commission's English Style Guide, the version of I which I have consulted admittedly post-dates the Regulation, clearly states use -is-,not -iz-.

Another record for the records: the EUIPO will be the only IP Office in the developed world that does not include granting patents among its activities.(Trying to come up with a rational explanation, I am left with the possibility that this might be the first tangible proof of tunnelling between unrelated parallel universes for what in our Universe is clearly a bad decision.Is CERN's LHC to blame?)

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